Quote Originally Posted by slapout9 View Post
I don't believe there is some exact date, more like a slow chipping away. IMO opinion it started with the Wilson presidency and has continued on since then. But we have forgotten the purpose of the Constitution more than anything, we get hung up on this law,article or whatever instead of seeing the problem or situation through the lens of original purpose which is contained in the Preamble not the individual pieces.

In the preamble it establishes 6 core missions in order to accomplish the original purpose of America.
1-form a more perfect union
2-establish justice
3-insure domestic tranquility
4-provide for the common defense
5-promote the general welfare
6-secure the blessings of liberty for now and the future
Concur with this. In fact I wrote pretty much the same thing way back at post 60 of this thread when I characterized the Declaration and Constitution as basicly an Op Plan for establishing the US government with the Preamble being the Mission statement for that operation.
Quote Originally Posted by WM
I like to view the two framing documents as something like an operations order for Operation USA. The Declaration of Independence is Paragraph 1 of that Op Order: Situation. A significant (and I think greatly overlooked) piece of the Constitution is its Preamble. I view this as the Mission statement for Operation USA. The remainder of the basic document constitute the opord's remaining three paragraphs while the various amendments serve as fragos that modify the operation due to changes in the situation. The various laws of the US Code might well be viewed as the various specialized Annexes that turn most opords into such ponderous works.

If you like this analogy, then reflect that never has the Preamble been modified. In other words, we the people of the United States still have a mission to "form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." Doing that is what "supporting and defending the Constition" meant to me when I took my oath and is what that phrase still means to me today.